


The Ship Who Soared

by lasergirl



Series: The Ship Who Soared [1]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl





	1. Chapter 1

_**Serenity: The Ship Who Soared 1/?**_  
**Title:** The Ship Who Soared - PART ONE  
**Fandom:** _Firefly/Serenity_ AU / _The Ship Who Sang_ by Anne McCaffrey  
**Pairings:** no.  
**Warnings:** SPOILERS HEREIN. Also, graphic surgical talk, if that sort of thing squicks you.  
**Notes:** I am apparently all about the crossover crackfic these days.  
**Previously Posted:** [Prologue](http://www.livejournal.com/users/coelogyne/24923.html).

  
**RANDOM SCENE:**

(Mal lets Jayne on board, on the shaky mercenary's proposition that if he screws up, he's done for. Captain's rules, and the crew's all asleep. Except the pilot. His voice comes from the intercom system, sounding like it's the bridge.)

Wash: Are you bringing strays on board again, Mal? This one looks like he might have fleas.

(Jayne looks around nervously.)

Jayne: Who's that?

Mal: *shrugs* Our pilot. Don't you mind what he says, he's got a mouth.

Jayne: Rest of your crew talk like that?

Mal: When I let 'em. *shakes his head*

Wash: (from nearest intercom) Is he housetrained at least?

Mal: *bows his head and squawks* Not now, Wash. Just fly the boat, please.

Wash: Oh, but we're not making a course adjustment for a good two hours.

Mal: Now, this here's your bunk. Only one knows the code is me and I know you got nothing to steal anyway, after that rock we lifted you off of.

Jayne: Nothing 'cept that payroll you lifted.

Mal: I'll be holding that in trust for you until I know you're not going to try to murder me in my sleep for sure.

(They're still standing in front of the bunkhouse door.)

Mal: Wash? Door?

Wash: Sorry.

(It pops open.)

Jayne: Your ship supposed to be doin' that?

Mal: Just the pilot.

Wash: "Just?" Mal, I'd like a proper introduction, if you're planning on keeping him.

Mal: That's right, I forgot.

(He grabs Jayne by the scruff of the neck and yoinks him around to a video feed by the doorlock.)

Mal: This here's Jayne. He's my muscle, and you got my permission to fling him out the airlock if he misbehaves. (To Jayne) Nighty-night. We meet back 0400.

(He goes to leave.)

Jayne: Hey, hey, hey, wait. The airlock? Why'm I talking to a bare wall?

Wash: I am the wall.

Mal: He's the pilot.

Wash: I'm the whole ship. Welcome to Serenity.

Jayne: _tai kong suo you de xing qiu_1 you got one of them Corpse Ships! I ain't flying on no boat piloted by a dead guy, Mal!!

Mal: You'll hurt his feelings. And besides, you got no choice. You want to go back to that mudball?

Jayne: I don't want to go back nowhere.

Mal: Okay, then, you got it decided. 0400 it is.

(Mal shuts Jayne into his new bunk like a puppy in a pound. Jayne glances around, eyes wide, trying not to whimper.)

*** TRANSLATION  
1\. tai kong suo you de xing qiu = [all the heavenly bodies of outer space](http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/episode3.html#ws). Only appropriate, don't you think?

Questions? Comments? Feedback always appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

FLASHBACK

(A dusty shipyard under the hot sun. Some of the ships are obvious junkheaps, some lightly-used and probably pirated. Mal and Zoe walk with the Dealer through the dismal rows, kicking the landing gear and prodding rust-dents in hulls.)

Dealer: Ain't too much the matter with the Cobolt - plenty of years good flying left in her.

Mal: *shakes head* Might tight in the cargo hold. I'm lookin' for something nice and roomy.

Dealer: Ares Constellation?

Mal: *spits* Pah!

Zoe: Alliance Assault craft? Even secondhand like that, I guess you don't see what me and him are wearin'.

Dealer: I figure most of these boats are from Alliance hands but I don't ask too much. I'd rather keep my business. And my head.

Mal: *wandering* We all just wanna keep our business.

(He stops in fron of a Firefly-class ship. It's battered but the power plant's humming away and sighing little gusts of steam.)

Mal: And this one?

Dealer: *tries to lead him away but Mal's having none of it* Well that one's a little... tempermental.

Mal: Structure looks sound enough. New rotator locks. Mind if I take a look at her innards?

(he presses the doorlock and the cargo bay hisses down.)

Dealer: Some folks change their minds when they look inside.

Mal: Then I wouldn't be buyin' a ship, would I? I don't care much how it looks on the outside. *looks around* Plenty of cargo space. How many crew?

Dealer: Uh - Runs with as few as two - bunks ten.

(There's a crackle of static from the intercom near the door. The dealer glances at it, stung.)

Mal: There anything else on your mind?

(Zoe goes over the the box and whips off the cover, twists a couple of merrets together - sparks fly.)

Wash: Ni ta ma de tian xia suo you de ren dou gai si!2

Zoe: Sir?

Mal: *corners the dealer* I'd never be a man to threaten another, but does the Alliance know you're dealing their corpse ships? Secondhand?

Dealer: - third -

Mal: It ain't legal, and it ain't even right!

Dealer: No one cares what I do with their supply! A guy unloaded that hunk of bolts on me for a song. Couldn't wait to be rid of it.

Wash: I told you he was a pirate but you wouldn't listen -

Mal: *to dealer* I don't expect you got a lot of buyer's for a creepy talkin' ship now, do you?

Dealer: The market's coming back -

Mal: bi zui3. I would like to have words with the pilot if you don't mind. Zoe?

(She ushers the dealer out of the cargo bay and you get the feeling there might be guns drawn.)

Mal: Does he treat you bad?

Wash: Doesn't treat me at all. You thinking of buying?

Mal: What's your name? The hull doesn't have one.

Wash: What did they call me? My name was Wash. The vessel was scrubbed when I got taken.

Mal: Wash. *he looks around the hold* You always fly this boat?

Wash: Since always. Been here two years, though. Ground-locked.

Mal: Okay, then, I got a proposition for you. Might be a bit dangerous at times.

Wash: *hardly able to contain his excitement* I'm listening.

(CUT TO:

Outside the ship, as Mal saunters down a few minutes (or an hour) later. The dealer looks petrified standing next to Zoe.)

Mal: Here's the deal. You cut the ground-locks, wire those voiceboxes back up and toss in a couple calorie packs, and my offer stands.

(The dealer just looks dazed... but amazed that someone's taking the crazy talking ship off his hands and he nods eventually and grins.)

Dealer: You got yourself a deal.

(They shake hands. End of scene.)

 

***TRANSLATIONS  
2\. Ni ta ma de tian xia suo you de ren dou gai si = fuck everyone in the universe to death.  
3\. Bi zui = shut up.


	3. Chapter 3

FLASHBACK

(Serenity is drawing near to a space station dock, sometime about 5-6 months after Mal bought the ship. In this time, all of the canon members of the crew have come aboard in pretty much their standard ways. That means Simon and River are onboard! Anyway.)

Wash: We're docking at Gamma Station in 6 minutes. Now would be a good time to look at your operator's manual. I'll draw your attention to page 73, where it says "The Pilot Requires Yearly Maintenance While Securely Docked." For those of you medically inclined, speak with the Captain about your options.

Simon: Options?

Mal: *deadpans* You ever service a corpus before?

(CUT TO: They're docked. The shell-room is open, and Simon, in his surgical apron and a cloth mask, is leaning over a very pale, still figure with a look of wonder on his face. Wash's corpus is covered to the waist in a non-abrasive thermal blanket. His face is serene, eyes closed. His head is shaved to just a fine stubble. At the base of his skull, several clumps of wires come out of the bed padding and into his head.)

Simon: No, not really.

(Jayne lugs two big glass cylinders - the size of fire extinguishers - filled with red gel down the vertical stairway. These are calorie packs, and the only source of nutrition and energy that the corpus needs. It's red because it helps give a more lifelike colour to the body.)

Jayne: Any more of this heavy liftin' and I'm puttin' in for a transfer.

Mal: Ain't nowhere you can go. Stop breathin' in this air.

Jayne: What's wrong with my air?

Simon: *passes him a mask* It's important to keep the corpus as little exposed as possible.

(He goes back to examining Wash's corpus. Jayne stays a minute, curious, but soon it gets to him. He leaves quickly, muttering about air. And when he leaves, you know he goes to him bunk and throws up someplace.)

Simon: *gently* The jacks don't look like they've been cleaned in a while. Wash?

Wash: *the intercom in his room is very quiet* Yes?

Simon: I have to unplug you from Serenity for a couple of minutes to clean the jack-in points.

Wash: *worried* Are you sure you have to do that?

Mal: *defensive* Yeah, how do you know they need cleaning?

Simon: There's ridges around the jacks. It means the skin is trying to grow around them, and that only happens if they haven't been disturbed in quite some time.

Mal: Probably more than I wanted to know.

Simon: You asked. Wash, I need you to go into your corpus here. All the way in. I know it's going to be dark, but you don't need to worry because I'm going to take good care of you.

Wash: O-... kay.

(After a couple of seconds, utter silence. Simon checks the vital readouts and it looks like there's a real person living inside there. Slowly, he grasps the jack and half-rotates Wash's neck until he can half-twist and slide the leads out of the skull. He almost expects Wash to shudder and wake up, but nothing happens. Quickly, he swabs the jacks clean and cleans the jack area thoroughly. Squirts disinfectant around liberally, etc.)

Simon: You looked at him when you bought the ship?

Mal: It was more like a liberation. We high-tailed it off the dirtball fast as we could on account of... dealing in corpse ships ain't exactly a noble profession.

Simon: Well, Corpus ships don't need a lot of medical service, but they do need it regularly. It's probably been four or five years since he was properly serviced.

Mal: That bad? He looked ok for a dead fella. When we swapped out the old calorie packs and changed filters he looked a lot better already.

Simon: Strictly, he's not dead. He's more in a state of suspended animation. The calorie packs are also a preservative and a transport medium. It's replaced his blood.

(Simon does some more cryptic things with interesting medical instruments.)

Mal: How much can he see of what we're doing?

Simon: The schematics for this corpus show a fracture at the top of C1 that was rebonded. He can hear us talking, but the rest of the body is nonresponsive.

Mal: Oh. *falls silent a spell.*

(Simon checks the body port, the place on Wash's corpus where the calorie tubes enter and exit. This is permanent and doesn't unplug. Mal tentatively reaches out a hand and touches Wash's unbreathing chest.)

Mal: And how come he's not breathing like regular folk?

Simon: *starts cleaning up, is putting the housing back on the support system, etc, in preparation for re-plugging Wash back into Serenity.* There are a few ways to make the corpus stable, and the easiest is to remove any moving parts that might go wrong later.

Mal: You mean he's got no innards?

(Simon shakes his head, takes up the jack again and gently plugs it into Wash's skull. There's a moment of adjustment. The shell-room intercom crackles.)

Wash: Please can we not do that again for a while?

Simon: Not for another year at least. You'll be fine until then. How are the feedbacks?

Wash: Best pickups I've had in years. Thank you, doctor!

(Simon cleans up and Mal watches as Wash's corpus goes back into the protective shell. Creepy. They go out of the little room and lock down the doors. River is waiting outside the shell-room, pressed back and palms against the wall, listening to Wash re-filling the ship with himself. Simon pulls off his apron.)

Simon: I didn't know you were down here.

River: He carries his home with him. He's a snail.

Simon: Come with me. *he leads her off gently, leaving Mal behind.*

(He goes to the infirmary and cleans his hands about eight times, trying to get the eerie sensation of the non-living corpus off his fingers.)

River: The inside of white gloves. You know what he feels like, too.

Simon: Why do you talk to him so much?

River: People are so loud. There's more space in him to move. Starspace, breath space. Follow from bridge to sky to ground, a pulse like a heart. You can see it.

Simon: *just looks confused*

(CUT TO:

Mal standing outside the little door of the shell-room, lost in thought.)

(CUT TO:

The blackness of space beyond the bridge windows.)


	4. Chapter 4

For weeks, Wash listens to her wake up screaming in the middle of the night. There isn't a lot he can do for her besides listening at first. Zoe's strong, but she's fragile inside in ways that she'd never let on, and if he says something the wrong way he figures she'll rip out the voicebox in her bedroom and then he'd never hear her waking up again.

There is no night in Serenity, just as there is no day out in the Black, but the crew sleeps anyway, and it's at those times that Wash is left peacefully alone. His 'sleep' cycles through a five-minute window of recovery, while the machinery hums and logs the ship's breaths until he wakes again. It's barely a blip in his consciousness if it weren't for the dreams he cherishes.

Zoe wakes up with the taste of death in her throat and ropes of curses wrapped around her words, and when she wakes like that the only thing she can do is scream into her pillow and wait for the memories to go away. Tonight's as bad as it gets, with all the corpses of her past out to revenge themselves.

She paces in a cold sweat, willing the ghosts of the past to leave her, but her voice is strangled and hoarse, and she cries in spite of herself.

"Not tonight, not now."

Wash, his curiosity already drawn by her screams, tunes into the tiny vidfeed at the door of her quarters and sees her pacing wall to wall, trailing the bedsheet like wings. The voicebox crackles like it always does and she freezes, twitching.

"You don't need to be here," she snaps at the feed. "You shouldn't watch."

"Can't help but be concerned," Wash says hesitantly. Maybe now is when Zoe tears out the voicebox and throws it across the room. For a minute, it looks like she'll do just that. If Wash could still cringe, he'd be doing it. "I don't mean to intrude. It gets awful quiet when everyone's asleep and I couldn't help but... I wanted to make sure you were alright."

She scoffs a harsh laugh and sulks on the edge of her bunk, wrapped in sheets. "Passed alright a long time ago. I'm either on the way to batshit or peachy keen, can't be sure which." She pulls a corner of the sheet down over her hair, obscuring his view of her face as it twists into tears. "Just once I'd like to not be livin' in a past I don't want to see any more. There's so much I can forget."

He knows what it's like to wake screaming like that: every day of his life under the pirate crew he prayed was just another bad dream, but the days never seemed to end. He knows it's the same for Zoe. When sleep isn't a refuge, when dreams aren't a comfort, the nights can get damn long indeed.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Wash asks, then wishes he could bite his tongue. "I know, I know, it sounds hopeless coming from a man who's not much more than a collection of nuts and bolts..."

"No," she says softly as the sheet slips down her shoulders. She looks like The Madonna, with a sad smile to match. "It's not hopeless... I don't know what it is."

"Charming and gallant?" He hopes that she'll reward that with a laugh, and it's a close struggle between that and the tears she wipes away with a stray corner of her veil. "I was hoping that would impress you. Can't blame a guy for trying."

This time, she really does laugh for him. "Wash. You don't have to try. You see any other man in this room but you?"

"But I'm not really here," and he knows she's thinking of the little shell-room that she's never entered, and what it might contain. "I'm just a spark in the air. Leaf in the wind."

"You're not 'just' anything." She draws her feet up under herself, curling back into the nest of bedclothes. Her toes distract him momentarily as he watches them go. Maybe he does miss his body, just a little bit. "You're the pilot. My pilot. You're my home, too, and after everything that's out in the Black, I'd rather be here than anywhere else in the 'verse."

"Even if I watch you wake up screaming in the middle of the night?"

"Oh," she says, and stretches luxuriously in the bed. Her arms go over her head, trailing fingers against the wall behind her. "I don't mind so much anymore. I might even let you stay a little longer if you treat me nice."

Wash has always been grateful to Zoe, ever since the beginning. It's a shame that the voicebox isn't any closer to her bunk, or that the vid pickup's a little grainy, but he deals with the disappointment by relishing the sounds of the sheets sliding against her body. It's the tiny noises he misses the most and when the crew's awake and chattering, they get lost. Now, in the almost-silence of Serenity, he can hear he breathe.

"Let me tell you a bedtime story, then," he says to her. She smiles sleepily and pulls the covers up to her chin like a little girl. "All comfy? Okay: Once upon a time, in a far and distant land, there was a beautiful princess with a big gun."

Zoe chuckles, "Oh, this one's my favourite."

"Shush, you'll ruin my story. This beautiful princess traveled all over the 'verse, having exciting adventures and getting into lots of trouble. She got in so much trouble that she had to hide out on a little moon where everyone else left their garbage. It looked like a graveyard, and it felt like one, but it was a good hiding place.

"One day, the beautiful princess came to a big old spaceship that bad, bad people had stolen and left in the graveyard. It was a nice spaceship, though. It wasn't all mean and dirty like some of the others she had traveled in. The princess was very nice to the spaceship, and helped to fix the bits and pieces that had fallen off when it was stolen. One day, when she was putting bits into the spaceship, she discovered that way deep inside there was a prince.

"A long time ago, the prince had fallen into an enchanted sleep , and while he was sleeping, some bad men came and took his eyes and ears and mouth away from him. When the prince woke up, he was in darkness. And he remained in darkness for a very long time, until the beautiful princess came and gave him back his eyes.

"When he saw the princess, his heart leaped with joy. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but he couldn't tell her because he didn't have a mouth to speak with. So the prince remained in silence for a while longer, until the princess came and gave him a mouth.

"When the prince got his mouth, he told the princess of all the things that had happened to him while he was sleeping. But when the princess began to speak, the prince couldn't hear her because he had no ears. So the prince had to wait a little while longer, until the princess came and gave him ears.

"When the prince got his ears, he could finally see and hear everything that was going on around him, and he could speak with the princess. But all the princess could do was cry, and this made the prince very sad indeed...."

Wash pauses, and listens with his prince's ears. Zoe's breathing has slowed, moved from the frantic breath of nightmares into the calm of sleep. He watches her breathe awhile, watches the slow pulse beating in her throat and knows she'll be okay.

"And sometimes the prince wished very hard that his magic spell could be lifted so that he could comfort the princess..." his voice is low, nearly a whisper now. "But he knew his wish could never be granted. But that didn't stop the prince from wishing all the same."

He stays many nights after that, and not once does she wake up screaming.


	5. Chapter 5

Inara's shuttle is a private place. Due to the nature of her business, it does no good to have all the eyes and ears open to the goings-on inside. A Companion's house is her castle, and as long as she pays her rent regular to the captain and kepps them in good relationship with the planets they dock at, she can be as private as she wishes.

The shuttle is also unabashedly the most feminine place on the ship, and Inara is used to having Kaylee drop in occasionally, when painting flowers along the coolant ducts isn't enough to satisfy her. But when she answers the door chime, she's surprised to see Zoe standing there, clutching a tiny infokey.

"A pleasant surprise." Inara swishes the curtain closed behind her to mask the ugly steel doors. "But you look perturbed. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Not lookin' for a shoulder to cry on, if that's what you mean," Zoe says awkwardly, ill at ease in the nest of luxury. But she doesn't make a move to leave, only turns the infokey over and over in nervous fingers. "Thought maybe we could talk. Over tea? However it's done."

"You remind me of someone who's got just the same way with words," Inara smiles graciously, offering a seat on the divan. "But the Captain would never come here to talk nicely. You're always welcome."

The look Zoe gives her is a scowl, but there's a ribbon of truth in it. She sighs. "It doesn't feel right talking to you like this, but I didn't want to... you know how it is."

Inara sets out the tea things, simple porcelain cups and a pot with a bamboo handle. Zoe fights with the cushions of the divan, resisting the relaxation of her spine into a gentle curve. Gradually, she gives in and stretches her long legs out under the tea table while Inara pours boiling water into the pot.

"Go on."

Zoe shrugs, opening her hand and putting the small square of silicon and plastic on the edge of the table. "It's part business. There's a file I need to retrieve from the Cortex that I can't get from Serenity." She sighs and looks down at her teacup. "And I can't get it from Serenity because it's about Wash."

If she is surprised, Inara doesn't show it. She picks up the teapot and pours a long stream of tea into Zoe's cup, then hers. After a silence, she says, "You don't know how to feel about him, do you?"  
"Is it wrong of me to be thinkin' about him?" Zoe waves her hands wildly in punctuation. "How is me likin' the pilot any different than me respecting my Captain? Except the pilot doesn't talk the way he does, and the Captain doesn't tell me bedtime stories."

"There are many layers to a person's relationship," Inara supplies. "How many layers, how deep they are, depends entirely on how much you are willing to understand."

Zoe shakes her head. "I don't understand. That's what's so hard. It just don't feel right to be spendin' so much time thinking about a man who isn't even alive. I've never seen his face. That's why I went planetside the last time we docked, to find records."

Zoe had spent hours in the public Cortex trying to find information about Wash's previous life, but the best she'd been able to do was wire a collector called Mr. Universe who promised that within six weeks he'd have something for her.

"You think that if you know his face, you'll be able to know him better?" Inara picks up her cup and blows across the surface, sending a breath of steam into the air. "Not all relationships have to be physical to be intimate. There are some who consider this form of partnership to be the most sacred."

"I don't know if it's sacred, or just crazy." Zoe shakes her head. "I just can't hear his voice without wanting to know what he looked like. I can't ask him. After everything he's been through it seems an awful mean thing to ask him, when he had to give up his body to live."

"It isn't my place to judge," Inara says softly, "You can use the communications here. But did it ever occur to you that for Wash, this could be the best thing that's happened to him? Would you risk your - and his - happiness?"

Zoe just looks at her and the conflict swirls plainly in her eyes. There have been a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of long conversations that have led to this moment, and she isn't about to turn back. That's one thing in her favour: Zoe is incredibly dedicated, and the last thing she wants to hear is 'no.'

"If I really do..." and she stumbles a little over the word "...love... him, this couldn't make me stop."

Inara purses her lips and reflects; "He loves you, there's no question there. He is human, after all. He has human weaknesses, no matter how hard he tries to hide them."

Zoe winces, thinking of the long nights Wash stayed with her through the nightmares and tears, and how hard it was not to have something there to hold. She can only imagine what it would be like to not have a body to hold someone with, and even her imagination frightens her. To spend a lifetime completely alone... even she is not as hardhearted to admit that the prospect is horrifying.

"Can't help bein' human," she says finally, to end the discussion, "and I can't help being curious. If you don't mind, I'll go and call down that infofeed now."

Inara rises to show her through to the bridge with a sad smile on her face.

**

Zoe's hands are shaking as she calls down the wire from Mr. Universe. It's not much - a few scattered public-domain files that she can see by the tags are long-overlooked, but she gets a sick feeling in her stomach as she opens the package.

Zoe:  
You're in luck, right time, right place. This was the best I could do without breaking any laws (bending, maybe). I was in flight school with Wash - tell him I asked after him and I'm glad to hear he's alive and well. His mother was torn up something awful when he died. I don't expect you'll ever be back my way but I'll keep an eye out. Don't worry, you're in good hands.  
Mr. Universe 

 

Zoe reads along in silence, building up the thin silhouette of what she knows about Wash into three dimensions. Gamma Station was in the Core, and there - he was flying the Battle of the Sturges. She skips quickly over the medical memorandum, stifling the nauseau that swirls in her gut. The ominous news of piracy lurks in his service record; when Mal bought the vessel from the shipyard in Athos, Wash had already been missing for a year. She knows what it was like after Unification, too. The Alliance spent a lot of time and money erasing some of its less-savoury tracks from the system so they wouldn't come out looking so dirty.

 

She shivers, paging through the terse bureaucratic death memo. Wasn't it just like the Alliance to put a worthless promise like that on it, when most of the pilots killed in space were never found? Anger surges and she flashes to the next file before she hits something.

 

When she sees it, she knows that's him. There's no mistaking that cocky jaunt to the head, the sardonic smile. There's a knot of pain in her gut that flares for a moment, before she breaks into a tearful smile. Why in the hell the Alliance would see fit to slap a photograph all over a Corpus license, she doesn't know, but she's glad they did. She pulls herself away from the screen long enough to call Inara back.

Inara comes to the cockpit in a rush, not knowing whether Zoe's cries are joy or terror, but as soon as she sees the screen she knows.

"So that's what he looked like. It's almost a shame." Inara gazes at the stranger's face, piecing together the mysteries in his eyes.

"Kind of a pity he doesn't use his body anymore," Zoe gushes, snapping the infokey out of the system and jumping out of the chair. "I wouldn't have minded trying that on for size at all." She's all long limbs and energy now, so different than when she came in.

Inara laughs as Zoe blusters to the door. "Are you going to tell him?"

"Of course I am!" No hesitation at all; Zoe laughs and tosses her hair over her shoulder "I gotta go. We have so much to talk about!"

END PART FIVE.


End file.
